Questions people ask before signing up
Including the ones where the answer is that this is the wrong tool for what you are doing. Finding that out here costs you five minutes; finding it out afterwards costs you a fortnight.
Getting started
Do I need approval from Meta to use WaveSenda?
No. You connect a WhatsApp account you already have, the same way WhatsApp Web links a browser, so there is no application, no business verification and no waiting. That is different from Meta’s Cloud API, which is a separate product with its own onboarding.
Do I need a new phone number?
No — most people connect the number their customers already message. A second number is worth having as a standby, but that is about surviving a ban rather than getting started.
Does my phone need to stay on?
No. The session is a linked device, so it keeps working while your phone is off. What does end a session is logging it out from Linked Devices, or leaving the phone offline for a very long period.
How long does setup take?
Scanning the QR takes a minute. Sending your first API message takes about ten, and a working AI agent about twenty. Connecting a shop or a website widget is an afternoon if you want it done properly.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes, there is a trial with credits included. Connect a number, send to yourself, and try the widget and an agent before deciding.
Bans, limits and deliverability
Will using this get my number banned?
Using software does not get numbers banned; behaviour does. Messaging people who never contacted you, sending faster than a human could, and accumulating blocks are what cause restrictions. WaveSenda paces sends, ramps a new number up over weeks and slows one that starts attracting blocks — but nothing can protect a number from a bad list.
What happens if my number gets banned anyway?
If you set up a standby number in advance, agents, flows, webhooks and open conversations move to it, because they are attached to a session rather than a number. If you did not, you are starting from a fresh account, which is the worst position to be in.
How many messages can I send per day?
There is no single answer, and anybody quoting one is guessing. It depends on the account’s age, its history and how many people reply. A new number should send a handful a day and build up over weeks.
Why does a message say sent but never arrive?
Most often the recipient has no WhatsApp account on that number. Other causes are a block, a phone that is off, or a number whose WhatsApp address differs from the number as typed. Check numbers before relying on them.
Can I import a list and message everyone on it?
You can, and it is the fastest way to lose the number. Messaging people who never contacted you is the largest single cause of restrictions. If the list is customers who have messaged you before, pace it heavily.
AI agents
Does the agent answer from my own documents?
Yes. You give it your material — refunds, delivery, prices, specs — and it answers from that rather than from general knowledge. When nothing relevant is found it hands over to a person instead of guessing.
What stops it inventing an answer?
A confidence threshold and an instruction to answer only from supplied material. Below the threshold it hands over. This is tunable, and the right starting point is more cautious than feels necessary.
Does it stop when a human replies?
Permanently, for that conversation. Two voices answering one customer is worse than either alone.
Can it handle voice notes?
It can transcribe them, and can reply in voice if you want it to. In several markets voice notes are the majority of inbound messages, so a bot that ignores them ignores most of the conversation.
What does it cost to run?
Agent replies consume credits, priced by usage. A quiet shop spends very little; a busy one should watch it in the console, where per-agent usage is visible.
Website chat
How is the widget different from a WhatsApp button?
A button sends the visitor into WhatsApp, which costs you everyone unwilling to leave the page or hand over a number — badly on desktop. The widget keeps them on the page and forwards to your WhatsApp. Most sites should offer both, in opposite corners.
Do I answer from the console or from WhatsApp?
Either. Most people answer from their phone, because that is where they already are, and replies appear in the visitor’s widget.
Can several people answer the widget?
Yes. List everyone who should receive chats; the first to reply takes the conversation and the others stop being interrupted, and are told who took it.
Can I match it to my brand?
Colour, corner radius, fonts, logo, launcher icon, position and custom CSS. On the higher plans you can remove our branding entirely.
Can I use the widget in another language?
Yes. Pick one of twelve — English, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian and Arabic — and the widget’s own buttons and labels change with it: the message box, Send, Sent and Delivered, the form before the chat. Your own text stays exactly as you wrote it, in whatever language you wrote it. Left on “follow the visitor’s browser”, each visitor gets their own language, so one widget serves a site with readers in several. Arabic also flips the whole panel right to left. And the AI agent detects the language a visitor writes in and answers in it, whichever setting you choose.
Can I ask for a name, email or phone number before the chat starts?
Yes, and you choose which: any of name, email and phone number, each either optional or required. The details arrive on the first WhatsApp message with the enquiry, so the number is there to press and call back. Worth knowing what it costs you — every field in front of the first message loses some conversations, so asking for one optional thing usually beats asking for three required ones.
What if nobody is available?
Set office hours and an away message. Messages are still accepted — a question asked at midnight is worth having — and the visitor is told honestly when somebody will be back.
Servers and deployment
I built an app with AI and cannot deploy it. Can this help?
That is who it is for. Connect your server once by pasting a line your hosting provider’s web console will accept, connect your GitHub repository, and then deploy by sending a message. The agent names the commit so you recognise your own work, asks you to confirm, puts it live, and checks the site still answers afterwards.
What happens if a deploy breaks my site?
The previous version is put back automatically, before you are told anything went wrong. Every deploy builds alongside the running one and only counts as finished once your site answers a health check. You can also reply “undo” within the hour after any change, and undoing never counts against your monthly allowance.
Can the agent run any command on my server?
No, and that is the whole design. It picks from a fixed list of specific operations — restart this service, show me this log, deploy this commit — compiled into software running on your own machine. Nothing it says can widen that list and neither can we. Deleting data, changing the firewall and editing who can log in are not on the list at any setting; those are done from the console with the action typed out to confirm.
Do you hold an SSH key to my server?
No. A small agent runs on your machine and dials out to us, so nothing connects in, no port is opened, and we never store a credential that opens a shell. It is open source and published with a checksum, so you can read it before you run it.
Which servers work?
Any Linux server with systemd that you can run one command on — Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Contabo, Vultr, Linode, AWS Lightsail, or a machine under your desk. Not managed hosting where you cannot install anything.
What does it cost on top of my plan?
Nothing on top. Every plan can connect a server and ask it questions; making changes is included from Pro upward. Asking uses AI credits like any other agent reply, and the actions themselves cost nothing because the work happens on your own machine.
Teams and pricing
Can several people share one WhatsApp number?
Yes, and that is one of the main reasons to use something like this. WhatsApp itself has no concept of assignment, so a team sharing a number without software means duplicate replies and dropped conversations.
How does pricing work?
A monthly plan with credits included, and credits cover messages and AI usage. Plans differ in limits and features rather than in how sending works. Current numbers are on the pricing page rather than in this answer, because they change.
What happens if I run out of credits?
Sending stops rather than silently dropping messages, and you can top up. Nothing is deleted.
Can I cancel?
Yes, at any time. Your data stays exportable while the account exists.
Data and privacy
Who can read my messages?
Messages pass through and are stored so the inbox, agents and reporting can work. Nobody at WaveSenda reads them as a matter of course, and access is restricted and logged. If you need a WhatsApp integration where no third party ever holds message content, this category of product is not it — that is worth knowing before you start.
Can I export or delete my data?
Yes, both. Export is available from the console, and deletion removes conversations and contacts rather than hiding them.
Do you store visitors’ IP addresses?
Only if you switch it on, and it is off by default. Website analytics count visitors with a code that changes daily, so ordinarily there is nothing durable to hand over if somebody asks what you hold on them.
Where is data stored?
In our infrastructure, with the region depending on your deployment. Ask before signing if you have a specific residency requirement — it is a reasonable question and the answer should be specific.
Longer answers live on the blog, the documentation and the comparison.